Bay of Islands

After spending two days at sea we reached Bay of Islands, New Zealand. We anchored in the middle of all the small islands and tendered to a port near Paihia (they pronounce it pie-here in a crocodile dundee accent) where we got on a bus to take us into town.

{our ship in the middle of the islands}

{the tender that left right ahead of us}

We didn't realize that it would take so long to get on the tender (we waited for over an hour before they called our number to leave) so once we got into the town we only had about 20 minutes to look around before our dolphin cruise started.

{Grace leading the way with the map}

Paihia was a cute little town that obviously thrives off of the tourism they get from cruise ships. There were so many little souvenir shops! We found a Christmas ornament for Grace of a native New Zealand bird.

{shopping district}

After a little shopping, we boarded a big ferry for our dolphin cruise. We saw some dolphins which was pretty cool! Here is a video of some of the dolphins we saw.

Then we kept on going to Hole in the Rock.

{Hole in the Rock}

We were actually able to go through the hole in our big boat!

{inside hole in the rock}

Then it was time to head back to Paihia so we could catch the shuttle back to the port and get a tender back to the ship. It was a short day but it was nice to get off the ship and onto solid ground!